Huey Long in Louisiana and Weber’s Theory of Charisma
This account of Huey Long’s supporters substantially portrays him as a flamboyant and charismatic American leader or a politician who is both cherished and loved by his followers. People could talk casually concerning him and would also attend and flock his campaign trips willingly regardless of the time he would pass by their towns. From this account, Long is also depicted as a religious, God-fearing and a God-sent leader to the people of Louisiana. Besides, these sentiments from his different followers portray Long to be a leader with a charismatic social relationship. Scholars have adequately defined a charismatic leader as an individual who is overwhelmingly given exceptional trust and expectations and also attributed with unique characters. According to Weber’s theory of Charisma, the concept of Charismatic leadership does not necessarily focus on analyzing the personality, but it much concentrates of the structure of social engagement. From the Weberian perspective, the social structure that is as a result of a charismatic leadership depicts demonstrative collectivization supported by an emotional relationship with the leader. Therefore, explaining the provided account about Long using Weber's theory of Charisma, it can be concluded that as a charismatic leader, he was able to form a leadership that demonstrated strong and significant social relationships.
Merits of Collective Behaviorism for Understanding Social Movements
Ideally, social movements are effectively described as broad alliances of individuals or organizations whose primary focus is a shared interest on social and political issues. Besides, social movements are also used to advocate for specific social changes and can, at the same time, be used to oppose a social change proposed by another entity (McPhail, 1989) . Collective behaviourism entails the social processes or events, which are against the existing social culture such as institutions and laws since they mostly emerge spontaneously. A collective behaviour may also be considered as an action that does not conform to certain norms. There are four significant groupings of individuals through which collective behavior can be observed including, the public, social movements, the crowd and the mass. According to Herbert Blumer, collective behaviorism plays a vital role in enhancing the understanding of the way the social movements are organized to advocate for a social change. Blumer further explains that collective behavior in reducing the destruction that happens in case of riots or natural disasters by understanding the behaviors of individuals taking part in such events (McPhail, 1989) . Another significant merit of collective behaviorism is that it has no social boundaries and thuds any individual can be a member. Criticisms of collective behavior include their research being interfered with the processes are uncontrolled, unpredictable and complicated. Other critics argue that collective behavior lacks objectivity and is often associated with unsatisfactory state and trivialization of politics.
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What does Weber Mean by Charisma?
According to Weber, Charisma significantly implies a certain quality regarding an individual personality that distinguishes them from ordinary men and often perceived as having exceptional powers. Weber further notes the routinization of Charisma as the diffusion of power among various distinct special interest groups (Stutje, 2012) . Also, from the Weber analysis, Charisma plays a significant role in understanding social movements as it substantially assists in understanding the institutionalization of charismatic leadership in various organizations advocating for social change (Stutje, 2012) . A great example of charismatic authority in real life includes Adolf Hitler, a renowned German politician, whose charismatic characteristics were core to the legitimacy of his regime.
What is the main argument of Resource Mobilization?
Resource mobilization is an approach that focuses primarily on the ability and assets of upset groups to demonstrate the results, rise and development of social movements. One fundamental argument of this particular concept is that both the integrating factors and cleavage are crucial aspects of a social movement to take place (Jenkins, J1983) . Resource mobilization is also used in explaining the concept of collective behavior as a way of transferring and mobilizing resources from one group to others. The Farm Alliance become a national movement through resource mobilization in that the movement combined resources from numerous organizations, which merged into three major groupings.
The Polity (Forms of Government) and Collective action
Regarding political opportunities and constraints, Tarrow argues that contention is significantly related to opportunities whereby contention is a way of public performance to communicate their disputes to the government for a collective action to occur. According to Tarrow, opportunities can be created through various dimensions such as repressiveness, state-strength, as well as overall strategies.
Traditional Repertoires of Protest
Ideally, various social movements and other groups of individuals apply numerous strategic actions to demand a change ranging from peaceful protests to violent acts. According to Tarrow, significant examples of traditional repertoires include sit-ins, demonstrations and boycotts.
Lebon’s Crowd Theory
Lebon’s Crown theory, also known as a mass theory refers to a specific category of individuals regarding their collective psychological state but not a massive group of people covered at a single space. Lebon primarily focuses on this group of individuals, who are mostly associated with unrestrained or suppressed instincts and personify primitive tendencies. The crowd theory further asserts that the masses apply a hypnotic influence on their members, as as, from the given prompt from the Saunders’s essay, the crowd that was made of Trump supports became violent and aggressive. Lebon however, formulated that group can motivate people to act in a specific way whereby the hypnotic influence along with anatomy from a large crowd can prompt people to involve themselves in some irrational behavior.
UPS Strike of 1997
The most significant theory to explain the case represented in the prompt is the Marx's economic exploitation, which states that workers within a capitalist's society are often exploited by being forcefully required to use their labor power in working for the capitalists for a minimal value as compared to the amount of the commodity produced using their labor. Similarly, to the UPS strike, the workers were tired by the cruel treatment by their employers from powerful corporations.
References
Jenkins, J. C. (1983). Resource mobilization theory and the study of social movements. Annual review of sociology , 9 (1), 527-553. https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/resource-mobilization
McPhail, C. (1989). Blumer's theory of collective behavior: the development of a non-symbolic interaction explanation. The Sociological Quarterly , 30 (3), 401-423. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Wvb5o2FV5bW8-ALX4CIBXLloLZoBELbF/view
Stutje, J. W. (Ed.). (, 2012). Charismatic leadership and social movements: The revolutionary power of ordinary men and women (Vol. 19). Berghahn Books.
Tarrow, S. G. (2011). Power in movement: Social movements and contentious politics . Cambridge University Press.
